


And Happiness Too

by flashindie



Category: Good Girls (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-19
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2020-03-07 22:47:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18882796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flashindie/pseuds/flashindie
Summary: “You know, I can’t even imagine him having a birthday?” Annie says, leaning back into the booth and sipping on her mojito. “Like, I kind of picture him springing out of the earth like a pod person, neck tatt, five o’clock shadow and all.”-Beth accidentally discovers it's Rio's birthday. Insecurities, doubts and birthday sex ensues.





	And Happiness Too

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from 'Happy Birthday', haha. 
> 
> If you're wondering about the lingerie set Beth buys in this, know that I loosely based i around [this set](https://www.laperla.com/media/catalog/product/LCI/iF/5J/u_MzPX3F0QZyukGFcdjBesP8z3BfzCwboAndo1J7ImRzIjoic21hbGxfaW1hZ2UiLCJmIjoiXC9DXC9GXC9JXC9QXC9MXC9NXC8wXC8wXC8wXC8wXC8wXC80XC9DRklQTE0wMDAwMDRfQkdXNTMwXzEwMF8xLmpwZyIsImZhIjoxLCJmZiI6MSwiZmgiOjYwMSwiZnEiOjkwLCJmdCI6MSwiZnciOjQxMH0~.jpg).

For once, she hears him before she sees him, his voice loud over the bustle of the playground, a familiar, cutting line through the disarray. 

“Pop, _no_ ,” he says, exasperation obvious in his voice, and Beth’s oddly pleased to hear that tone directed at somebody who’s not her for a change, even if that person is a six year old currently clambering onto the roof of the playground clubhouse. Rio must have only just pushed off the park bench, if the way he lurches forwards when Beth’s gaze finds him is anything to go by, striding forwards across the grass towards his son. “Get down.” 

Beth’s not the only woman watching him either – in the process of seeking him out, her eyes meet a clutch of mothers standing by the swing set, their gazes fixed on the long, leonine line of Rio’s body as he moves, and God, Beth thinks, walking towards the park bench Rio’s only just abandoned, adjusting her grip on the container in her hands and the bags over her shoulder, feeling every bit a pack mule, was she ever that desperate? 

She hopes not, but –

Probably. 

She sighs inwardly, letting her gaze drift back to Rio and Marcus. There’s a brief moment where she seriously thinks Marcus might not follow the instruction, but as Rio gains in proximity, he slides quickly back down off the plastic roof of the playhouse to the ground, having the good sense to look bashfully up at his father, kicking the dirt with his shoe. 

Even from here, Beth can see it, the way Rio rocks his jaw in obvious disapproval, but any reprimand he might have, he bites his tongue, crouching down before him. She doesn’t hear what he says next, but she can make out his tone – somehow both firm and soft, like it usually is with Marcus. Like it is with nobody else Beth has seen him with.

She slides down onto the bench, leaning back enough to put the drop bag on the grass between her feet and the container of cupcakes she’s been lugging around beside her on the bench. It’s been a day, to put it lightly. The kids were at Dean’s for the week, but Beth had still had to fill their part of the bake sale quota (Emma had _begged_ ) and the minivan had failed to start – she’d tried calling Hank from Boland Motors out to take a look at it, but he’d been swamped with (paying) work, and even though he’d offered, she hadn’t wanted to overburden him, so she’d ended up instead with a mechanic from the nearest shop, some guy half her age who’d ogled her chest and talked to her like she had the brain function of the oil rag in his back pocket, and it had just - - 

It had been a lot. 

She’d ended up catching an Uber to the park, with Ruby promising to pick her up as soon as she finished her shift at Dandy Doughnuts to take her via the school to drop off the cupcakes and then out for girl’s night drinks. They were overdue after all, and Beth was looking forward to it more than she could say – hell, she’d circled the date with star and heart stickers on her calendar. 

Pushing her hair back off her shoulder, she watches as Rio finishes admonishing Marcus, turning back around, spotting her and heading over, his hands buried deep in the pockets of his jacket. It’s not all that cold, but he’s dressed like it is – beanie, coat and all. Then again, she thinks he might be allergic to sweaters, and he never zips his hoodies all the way, giving any cool breeze the ability to whip straight through him. She’d made the mistake of telling him this once, trying to button up his jacket for him, and he’d taken it as an invitation to push his freezing hands down the back of her pants and purr lewd things in her ear about all the ways she could warm him up. 

The memory makes her cross her legs now, thighs clenching, and she rolls her eyes a little at herself, her gaze finding that gaggle of moms again, still watching Rio attentively. 

So, sure, she’s that embarrassing too apparently.

Right now Beth is only dressed light herself – a pair of black jeans, boots, a sky blue sweater that hugs her chest (not that most things don’t – a mixed blessing of having a cup size that bypasses the first five or six letters of the alphabet), a faded black bomber jacket over the top. 

It’s still early – can’t be much past three, but there’s a slight, dragging exhaustion to Rio’s step that makes Beth frown. Her frown only deepens when he just nods at her when he finally reaches her, pulling his hands out of his coat pockets and going straight for the container of cupcakes. He makes quick work unclipping the lid and prying it open. 

“Oh, baby, you shouldn’t have,” he says, and his tone is light – lighter than she knows is genuine, and Beth just rolls her eyes, snapping the container lid shut against his fingers before he can pull a cupcake out. 

“They’re for something at the school.” 

She hopes its firm, figures it is, if the way Rio fakes at surrender is anything to go by, raising his hands like Beth’s got a gun and this is one of the John Wayne Westerns her dad used to love. And it’s stupid, right? It’s just cupcakes, but still. She knows him well enough to know that if she gives him one, he’ll somehow be leaving her with half of them. It’s just what he does. Beth scoots along the park bench, over towards the middle, giving her enough room to move the container to the other side of her hips, out of his arms reach, shooting him a filthy look in the process.

Rio mostly just looks amused, lips twitching as he makes a production of flopping down onto the bench, a little too close to her, and sitting on his hands. His gaze finds her briefly, softly, in a way that makes her breath catch, before it’s back out across the park, searching out Marcus like a lighthouse might find its ship. 

The afternoon is bright, bustling with parents and kids younger than either of their own. There’s an energy to the park at this hour of afternoon that Beth’s always liked – joggers, people walking dogs, ice cream trucks and pretzel carts setting up in the nearby carpark. It’s a thrum of activity that, during her days when her world was really just her house, before Fine & Frugal, before she knew who Dean really was, before she knew who _she_ was, had felt exciting. Now it just feels warm, familiar, something easy to lean back into and breathe in. 

She moves her leg below the bench, finding Kenny’s ratty old sports bag and hooking her foot into the strap. 

“Your cut,” Beth says, discretely pushing the bag towards him below the bench. “It’s all there.” 

He waits a minute, looking briefly around before he stretches forwards, unhooking the strap from her foot, fingers brushing the sliver of exposed ankle between her boot and her jeans, making her breath catch all over again, before he’s tugging it over between his own legs. He rifles through it, counting out the cash. 

And she knows that he trusts her enough these days to know it’s all there, so she can never quite tell if this part of it is about keeping her in her place or if it’s just habit. Either way, it makes Beth roll her eyes, her gaze finding Marcus across the playground, brimming with energy as he finally gets to clamber up on the monkey bars. She grins as he lurches gracefully across, something inherently _Rio_ in the way he confidently finds the next rung, swinging his little body across. When he gets to the end, he leaps down, and immediately circles the playground to re-join the line to do it all again. 

Her phone buzzes in the pocket of her jeans, and she tugs it out – the message from Ruby reading bright across the screen. 

_Leaving DD now. Ready for death’s sweet embrace. Pls tell me you have a cupcake and a cocktail waiting at the gates of hell for me. I’ll be passing thru in 10._

Beth grins down at her phone screen, making quick work of typing out the reply. 

_No death embrace here, but MY embrace is waiting for you! And no cocktail but Y to a cupcake! 😊 I’ll get Annie to have drinks waiting for us at the bar though?_

She pockets her phone, checks her watch, like the time there might be different, and she’s surprised when Rio makes a noise of irritation beside her. 

“Oh, sorry, ma, am I keepin’ you?” 

Looking back at him, Rio’s gaze is still fixed down on the bag at his feet as he finishes sifting through the money, and Beth has to resist the urge to scowl at him. He’s in a bad mood. She’d thought it earlier, but there’s a set to his shoulders she doesn’t like, a lilt to his voice that puts her teeth on edge. She sits up a little straighter. 

“Always,” she says, a bit too sweetly, and it’s enough to make his gaze flick up to her, his jaw to rock backwards and then forwards again in obvious irritation, and Beth just meets his gaze head on. 

She thinks he might say something – probably sharp, probably biting – but then his own cell is buzzing in his own pocket, and he kicks the bag of cash back to Beth and rocks up off the seat to answer it, striding far enough away that she can’t eavesdrop, but close enough he can still keep an eye on Marcus. 

And it figures, she thinks, leaning back into the seat, finding the bag of cash again with her feet. While that’s here, she can’t just leave. She hopes his call isn’t long, or if it is, that Ruby isn’t left long in the carpark. Beth scrubs a hand over her face, annoyed, when suddenly a small weight collapses onto the park bench beside her. 

“Where’s Emma?” the small weight asks, and then, quickly, remembering his manners. “Hi.” 

Beth can’t quite help the grin. 

“Hi,” she says, watching as Marcus wriggles up onto the bench beside her. He really is cute. Almost _too_ cute, as Annie would say, but still. Adorable. He’s in a khaki pants today, sneakers, a little checked button down and a blue sweater not unlike her own, and it’s not really like Beth thought all that much about what Rio might dress a potential child in before she realised that he had one, but still. She never would’ve figured this. “Emma’s at her daddy’s. She’ll be back to play next week though.” 

Marcus looks only briefly disappointed by that as he sits up a little taller on the bench. He looks over Beth’s lap to the container of cupcakes on the other side of her, his mouth falling open.

She’d decorated them all to be water themed. After all, the school bake sale is supposed to be raising funds to send the swim team to nationals, and Beth won’t even pretend not to love a theme. She’d done cupcakes with frog heads and shark fins, crab claws and mermaid tails, and a few that just had wave-shaped icing to balance them out for the display. Hell, her fingers were still a little blue from the food colouring.

And yes. They were gluten _and_ nut free this time. 

Beth’s already grabbing the container to give him one, when Marcus’ voice trills through their relative quiet. 

“Are they for my dad?” 

Beth blinks, her gaze finding Rio again, still a few feet away, his own stare fixed on the ground, his mouth set in a tight line as he argues something she can’t hear into his cell. She frowns, trying to stifle the tightness in her chest at him looking so unhappy, before she looks back at Marcus, who’s watching her inquisitively. 

“They’re actually for Emma,” she says, instead of no. “She has a very special thing on at her school, and they asked all the mommies and daddies to make something, so I made these.” 

Marcus gives her wide eyes, mouth opening somehow wider. 

“You _made_ them?” he asks, voice loaded with amazement, and Beth can’t help but laugh, pulling the container into her lap and cracking it open. She offers it over to him. 

“Mm-hmm,” she says. “Would you like one?” 

Marcus wriggles over in his seat, so close Beth can smell his shampoo, something soft and boyish, and she watches his little hand hover over the mermaid, then the crab, before finally grabbing the frog. He shuffles back into the bench, looking at it almost in awe, clutched between his hands, and Beth opens her mouth to say something when Marcus suddenly says:

“Can I get one for my dad too? It’s his birthday tomorrow.” 

And it’s said so innocently, so innocuously, that Beth finds herself briefly at a loss for words. She looks at Marcus, who stares brightly, sweetly back at her, and then her gaze shifts to Rio, twelve feet away across the park, pacing, irritated, on his cell still, and it’s just - - 

She blinks, unable to stop the loud exhale escaping her lips.

“Of course,” she says, covering it, offering the container to Marcus again, and this time he taps his chin, looking over her icing sugar creations. His hand briefly hovers over the shark, then the waves, before finally settling on the mermaid, pulling it out and propping it on his leg. 

Something in Beth’s chest stutters at the image of it (Why’d he pick the mermaid? Does Rio talk about women in front of him? With him? Are there women who - - ) but she shakes it out of her head as quickly as she can. Marcus is just a boy and he’d wanted the mermaid himself, and besides, she and Rio are just - - well, she doesn’t know what they are. 

“Did you get your daddy a present?” she asks instead, sealing up the container, and putting it back beside her, resisting the urge to look at Rio again. Marcus just hums, nodding, plucking out the bit of white chocolate she’d made one of the frog’s eyes with and eating it. 

“Yup. My mommy got a cup for his coffee and I painted it special for him, and I made him a card, and I helped abuela pick out _two_ shirts and tía and me got him a new necklace which we’re gonna give him at special dinner tomorrow.” 

“Aren’t you good? You’re spoiling him rotten,” Beth says with a put-upon laugh, and she can’t help it this time, when her gaze finds him across the park, something unfamiliar and tight winding in her gut. This time, he seems to feel her looking, and his gaze fixes back on her, and she doesn’t know what he sees, but something in her face seems to take him briefly aback. 

Marcus suddenly gasps, sitting up a little taller, and Beth blinks back down at him. 

“It’s a secret til tomorrow though,” he tells her suddenly, voice full of childish urgency, and Beth grabs the air at the corner of her lips, zipping it clean across her face. 

“Your secret’s safe with me, Sir Marcus,” she says, weighing her voice down to sound like an English knight, and Marcus beams back at her, smile as bright as the sun.

*

“You know, I can’t even imagine him having a birthday?” Annie says, leaning back into the booth and sipping on her mojito. “Like, I kind of picture him springing out of the earth like a pod person, neck tatt, five o’clock shadow and all.”

Ruby makes a vague noise, somewhere between agreement and like she’s still mulling the whole thing over, and Beth resists the urge to groan or collapse back into the booth or maybe, probably both. Instead she just huffs out a little breath, reaching for her own cocktail. 

She hadn’t even really intended to tell them, but she’d been put off kilter enough by the whole thing that as soon as Rio had gotten off his cell, she’d given him the bag of cash again, scrambled to her feet, mumbling an excuse, and beelined for the carpark. She doesn’t even know _why_ it’s set her off like it has, just - - just she thinks maybe it’s because Rio didn’t even _tell_ her, let alone invite her to his birthday dinner, but then again, that’s silly too. It’s not like they’re anything more than business partners who occasionally see each other naked, and besides, she doesn’t think he knows her birthday either (although, really, he’s probably figured it out) and she certainly wouldn’t be inviting _him_ to a family birthday dinner, just - - 

“The problem is now I _know_ ,” Beth says. “And there’s no _way_ Marcus didn’t tell Rio that I know when he gave him his cupcake because I made a point of _not_ giving Rio one when he asked.”

Not that Rio asked exactly.

Not that he ever does. 

“The kid might have just been faking you out to get two,” Annie says. “Kids are evil for sugar.” 

“Ain’t that the truth,” Ruby adds, but Beth just shakes her head. 

“No, not him,” she says glumly, her lips finding her straw as she sips on her drink. Because honestly, it’s a little depressing that Rio’s managed to instil such integrity into a miniature human. She still can’t get Jane to keep her pants on at the mall, or Danny to stop licking hand railings. 

“He might not even celebrate it,” Ruby offers, watching Beth slurp on her cocktail. “A lot of people don’t. Remember how much my dad used to hate his? I think he’d have written the thing off the calendar if he could have.” 

And Beth considers it only briefly, before she shrugs, biting the inside of her cheek, and looking away. 

“Marcus made it sound like a _thing_. Like the family’s all buying things. He painted a mug _and_ made a card. They’re having dinner with his aunt and his grandma at least.” 

“Ugh,” Annie says, dramatically making a face of disgust, gesturing her hand out. “That kid is too cute.” 

“Way too cute,” Ruby adds. “He looks like he should be in a juice commercial.” 

“Juice, Lego, DisneyLand. Something like, grossly wholesome where the people are so photogenic you want to wear their skin Leatherface-style,” Annie agrees, and Beth rolls her eyes, but secretly agrees too. 

The bar (not Rio’s bar – not with Annie and Ruby. She doesn’t ever want them to see where she and Rio first - - _you know_. She’s not sure she’d ever live it down) is still pretty quiet – a perk of arriving the sunny side of four, and it means that the waitress is relatively easy to wave down again, Beth gesturing for another round. It’s a cute place. A hole in the wall that Annie had discovered during after-work drinks with the Fine & Frugal gang, and it’s easy to overlook the flaking paint and mismatched glassware when the drinks are this cheap, the place well-lit, and a Best Of the 90s playlist blears tinnily over the speakers. 

“Okay, so let’s assume it’s a thing,” Ruby says. “And maybe he celebrates it. Drop him a text, tell him Marcus mentioned it, and just ask him if he’d like to do anything with you for it.” 

And even the thought is enough to make Beth blanch, shaking her head hard enough her hair flicks her cheeks. She tries to ignore the way Ruby rolls her eyes, having a sip of her own drink. 

“ _Noooo_ ,” Beth adds, just to make the point hit home, forcing a laugh to hide how mortified she is at even the thought. How would he even reply to that? He probably wouldn’t. Or he’d tell her to stop interrogating his kid about him. Or, worse, he’d laugh at her. _Why would I want to do somethin’ with you?_

She bites the inside of her cheek, feels a heat rise in her chest at even the thought. 

“God forbid the two of you have a conversation about all of this,” Ruby says dryly. “I mean, come on, Beth, it’s getting - -”

Before she can keep going, Beth cuts her off. 

“It’s not like we’re boyfriend and girlfriend or anything,” she says, leaning forwards over the table, a big, dumb, empty grin on her face. “We’re not even dating. We’ve just,” and she gestures vaguely out between all of them. “You know. A couple of times.” 

Ruby and Annie turn to look at each other, and then both fix Beth with a scarily identical look. 

“What?” 

“I mean. You’re not _not_ dating,” Annie says, and Beth gapes at her before quickly collecting herself, painting a look of disdain on her face as she leans back in her seat.

“Oh, come on, Annie.” 

“I mean, Dean moved out almost six months ago,” Annie replies, holding up her hands in surrender, not unlike how Rio had in the park only a few hours before.

“Temporarily,” Beth adds dryly, because of course, five-and-a-bit months ago was when he’d taken the kids, given her that ultimatum, and then, for a few weeks, moved back in. It’s only been three months since they’d finally called it. Since he’d found himself an apartment with the guarantee of being able to stay at his mom’s (much bigger) place the weeks he had the kids. Beth had gone back into work with Rio after many a trial, and they’d fallen back into bed together about two months ago, and since then - - well, it hasn’t even been that often. Just a few times, here and there, just it’s always- - 

She bites her lip, crosses her legs below the table. 

So it’s good. Always. 

It doesn’t necessarily _mean_ anything. Just…

Just maybe it does. 

“All we’re saying is that it’s not like you’re seeing anyone else,” Ruby offers gently, taking over. “And you guys spend a lot of time together.” 

“We work together,” Beth says, and Annie just rolls her eyes. 

“We all work together, Beth. And unless Ruby is about to announce something genuinely _shocking_ , you’re the only one having regular meetings with his dick. Hell, you’re the only one having regular meetings with him at all.” 

“They’re not that regular,” Beth says, but she doesn’t meet Annie and Ruby’s knowing stares, because, okay, maybe she sees him at least once a week. Maybe sometimes he stays over, but that _still_ only counts as once a week, even if it’s across two days, and maybe a couple of weeks ago they hadn’t talked work or even had sex – he’d just - - he’d shown up at her back door in the early hours of the morning, his knuckles bloody and his lip split, and he’d fallen into bed beside her and held her so close it had been like he wanted to slip below her skin and live inside her for a while, but when she’d woken up he’d been gone, the only trace that he’d ever been there at all in the blood at the shoulder of her pyjamas from where he’d pushed his face there, and the memory of his hands, shaking a little as they’d held against her belly. 

But Annie and Ruby didn’t even know that had happened anyway, so.

It’s basically irrelevant. 

Ruby opens her mouth to speak again, only Beth’s saved by the waitress with their next round, sliding their drinks across the table. 

The change in focus at least lets Annie and Ruby briefly bicker about how much mint is even supposed to go in a mojito, and Beth plays with her straw, pushing it down and muddling the lemon slice at the bottom of her glass. A pip rises up to the top, and she bites the inside of her cheek again. After a second, she clenches her eyes shut, so she doesn’t have to look at them when she asks it. 

“Do I get him something?” 

Annie and Ruby both immediately surge forwards across the table, argument forgotten, knocking over a menu and salt shaker in the process, hands reaching for hers, like this is exactly what they’d been waiting for since Beth had brought the whole thing up. 

“ _Yes_ ,” Annie says, at the same time Ruby says, “Maybe give him an experience? Like, you know that boy buys whatever he wants for himself. He doesn’t need you to get him a shirt or a DVD boxset or whatever.” 

Annie pushes a finger out in Ruby’s direction, nodding in agreement. 

“Very true. Definitely an experience. I say just give him something you don’t usually do. Like let him put it in your butt or something. Guys love that.” 

Beth chokes a little on her drink.

“ _Annie_.” 

“What?” 

“Or she could do something romantic, _Annie_ ,” Ruby says, squinting at her, and then, her voice growing a little more excited, “Wine and dine him. Stan and I went to this place last year where they gave us like, the most _well-travelled_ grape you could ever hope to _see_ , let alone eat.”

It’s enough to make Annie gesture widely, forehead furrowing in confusion, and Ruby frowns beside her, like she’s only just thinking it over, and then pulls a face of her own. 

“I mean, maybe he’d be into that?” 

And if Beth’s honest? She really has no idea. She doesn’t even know what he does for fun except rile her up and, well, sleep with her. Usually in that order these days too. 

“He does like food,” she offers though, her voice a little weak.

“Why risk it when you know sex is a sure thing?” Annie says. “I vote butt stuff. Or, if not, let him tie you up, or wear like, his highschool English teacher’s perfume or something. I bet he’d be into that. He’s obviously into MILFs.” 

“Okay, thanks,” Beth says too loudly, lurching up from her seat. “Who wants another drink?”

*

The house is always too quiet without the kids at home – the space too big, cavernous almost, and every creak or metallic drone sets Beth on edge. It doesn’t help that she’s a little drunk too. They hadn’t ordered their respective Ubers until almost midnight (or in Ruby’s case, Stan, since she’d drunk way too much to drive herself home. To his credit, Stan had mostly been intensely amused, especially when Ruby had given him a wet kiss and grabbed his ass _hard_ when he’d found them), and Beth had managed to evade any more conversations about Rio’s birthday until they were walking out the door and Annie had asked how old they thought he was turning, then gasped loud enough to say “He’s a _Leo_ ,” and basically Beth had just twirled away from the conversation as quickly as she could manage it.

Now though she’s sighing again, because god, it’s technically his birthday now, isn’t it? It’s after midnight after all, and she wonders where he is. Probably not with another woman, at least. He’d had Marcus yesterday after all, and the way that Marcus had chattered had made it sound like he’d be with Rio overnight and for his birthday too. So he’s probably in that big, too nice bed of his in his big, too nice loft. He’s probably sleeping. Like Beth should be. 

She groans, flopping over, pouting to herself, head still wobbly. 

She wonders if the ‘special dinner’ will be there? If it’ll be family cluttered and laughing around his kitchen island, or if they’ll be sprawled around that dining room table, extra chairs pulled over from their various corners. She wonders if they’ll lay out the table cloth, if he has good china (or if all of it’s just _good_ ), if his sister (god, he has a _sister_ ) will glow at him too sweetly as she passes her gift to Marcus to play at being giver, or if she’ll razz him about his meticulousness, about all the strange lines in the art he collects, about the drawers that won’t close on his buffet. She wonders if his mom will break it up, or just roll her eyes, pour herself a glass of wine, watch them bicker, or play with Marcus, or lay the table, or all of it and just - - 

Beth can’t explain it. The tightness in her chest. 

Or maybe she can. 

Maybe her own family dinners were just her and Annie for too long. Maybe Beth’s memories of her mother are scattered and thin and torn at the seams. Maybe she always loved the idea of a big family, and she’d tried to make one for herself, but here she is, alone in bed, her husband with his own mother, her children asleep under the roof of a family that isn’t hers anymore – that maybe, probably never was. 

But then. All the new photos in Rio’s loft had just been him and Marcus too. 

And god, why does she even care? This is stupid, she tells herself. If he’d wanted her to know about his birthday, he would have told her, and it’s not like she’s going to show up tonight, or try to force him out to a celebratory drink or whatever. He has plans with his family, and he and Beth? They’re not _that_.

But…

But they aren’t _nothing_ , she thinks, toes curling, remembering his mouth on her, only a few days before, his fingers impossibly deep inside her, his cock, pressing against her hip, and that’s like. 

That’s something too, right? 

So maybe there’s nothing stopping her from just doing something _nice_ for him. After all, he’s seemed stressed lately, and the weeks-old memory of his bloodied knuckles entwining at the pale, soft flesh of her belly is still stark in her head, and maybe…maybe she could just do something nice? It wouldn’t necessarily be for his birthday or anything. Especially if she does it tomorrow. 

His birthday would have been and gone!

She hums a little to herself, warming up to the idea, the alcohol thrumming warmly in her head, and finally thinks, _fuck it_ , reaching for her phone and searching _sexy gifts for your man_ , giggling a bit to herself as she does it. 

When the search results come back with wall-to-wall couple vibrator recommendations, she blanches, going quickly back to the top and searching for _sexy things to do for your man_ instead and scrolling through one of the first articles she finds. 

Tip #1 – Get naked 

And Beth just scoffs.

Obviously.

Tip #2 – Think outside the bed

Been there, done that. 

She scrolls down through a few.

Tip #6 – Sensual massage

Beth blinks, bites the inside of her cheek, sees a gif of some oiled-up soap star, running his hands down his own chest, and can’t help but blush, scrolling to the next tip. 

Tip #7 – Meet him at the door naked.

And sure, Beth thinks, snorting. Maybe, if Rio ever actually knocked. Besides, he’s not the only one who doesn’t, so she can’t just lounge around waiting for any combination of Rio, Ruby or Annie to stride in. And sure, all three of them have seen her naked at various points (albeit in pretty different situations), but she’s not sure she could bear the embarrassment of the girls – or, hell, even _Rio_ knowing she’d been there just… waiting. 

Tip #10 – Talk dirty 

Beth blinks, thighs clenching a little, toes curling, and scrolls quickly through. 

Tip #12 – Get some new lingerie

And - - and maybe, she thinks, biting her lip, and then seeing the next tip: 

Tip #13 – Try this bondage for beginners’ kit

Beth throws her phone to the other side of the bed, cheeks flushed, thighs clenching, and - - nope. Nope. Not - - well.

Not yet. 

She lets her eyes slip shut again, trying to regain her breath, pushing any thought of herself bound, Rio above her - - or, her breath stuttering, _Rio_ tied to her bed, her on top of him, from her mind. 

Lingerie, she thinks instead. 

Let’s think about lingerie. 

She climbs out of bed, finding her underwear drawer and rifling briefly through it. Most of her bras are pretty old, and most of her less-threadbare panties Rio’s already pulled off her, and the only real lingerie set she has is a black thing that she’d never liked that Dean had given her for an anniversary almost ten years ago. It’s not that she didn’t _like_ lingerie generally either, it was just that she’d always felt kind of silly buying it, and after she and Annie had had the dubious pleasure of seeing the sequined thong Dean had bought for Amber, those feelings had only doubled. 

She pulls out the black bodysuit that Dean had bought her though all the same. It’s basically a sheer leotard, and it’s not ugly, exactly, but it’s not made for women who look like Beth. Not made for the dips and curves and swells and valleys that make up the bodies of women like her. She doesn’t even have to put it on again to know that it’ll strain painfully across her breasts and bunch with loose fabric at the dip of her waist. _A string of sausages in their casing_ , that’s what her mother used to say, her voice snide, when Beth had gone from a B-cup to an F-cup in her junior year of highschool and didn’t know how to dress anymore, and just. 

Beth frowns. 

She thinks of how she felt – in that bright blue thong all those months ago. How she’d intended it for Dean, but it was Rio who’d pulled it off – the very first time he’d pulled _anything_ off her – Rio who’d _kept it_ afterwards, slipping it into the pocket of his jeans as he’d left her. 

She bites her lip. 

Before she can think anything else of it, she climbs back into her bed, grabbing her phone as she does it and flicking a text to Annie and Ruby. 

_Maybe lingerie? I’ll need to buy something new though_.

She hits send before tossing her phone down the bed, groaning, but feeling somehow a little lighter, and it’s not long before she’s asleep.

*

The whip whooshes down through the air, almost clipping her ear, and it’s all it takes for Beth to lean over, yanking it out of Annie’s grip.

“Can you not?” she hisses, watching Annie stick out her tongue, and it’s really not fair that Annie drank more than any of them but has enough youthful recovery on her side to be the only one without a hangover. Ruby looks wiped beside her, eyes at half-mast as she washes a couple of Tylenol down with her latte, and Beth honestly isn’t much better. She’d managed to wolf down a tomato juice and an omelette for breakfast which had put enough in her belly to throw up a half hour later, and she feels only slightly better for it. 

“I’m just trying to help,” Annie adds now, gesturing at the short black whip now in Beth’s grip. “This feels like the sort of stuff he’d be into.” 

Beth glares at her, awkwardly shoving the whip back onto the shelf where Annie had found it amidst a collection of leather ties, handcuffs, and ball gags. She can feel herself blush at the sight of them and quickly averts her gaze, trying to look as dignified as possible as she strides towards the other side of the store, away from the small sex prop section Annie had managed to maneuverer them to and back towards the main stretch of lingerie. 

The air conditioning is crisp and a little too cold, but she finds the chill of it a relief to her hangover, a kind, nursing touch to her clammy skin. The place is nice generally, and not a store Beth has ever been to. She knows Annie and Ruby had made a point of avoiding the bigger one in the mall – the one that Dean had been buying vagina floss in for at least one of his child brides – and instead brought her to a boutique in the higher end section of the place. 

(“I know you’re not exactly rolling in it, but it’s not like you can’t afford it at the moment,” Ruby had said. 

“And who knows,” Annie had added. “If he likes it enough, maybe he’ll reimburse you for it. It’ll pay for itself!”)

And it’s _pretty_ , Beth thinks, looking around. Well-lit with aisles of white lace and jewel-toned satin, pastel coloured silk nighties and fluffy slippers and thongs barely more than a whisper of fabric. It’s bigger than she’d thought from the outside too, but somehow still intimate. The place reeking of wealth and class, even in the more lascivious pieces. 

Beth bites the inside of her cheek, trying to ignore the tightening in her gut. She isn’t really sure what she’s doing here. She knows the intent, remembers exactly what she’d thought and how she’d felt last night, but in the clean light of sobriety, of the morning, it all just feels mostly embarrassing. At the end of the day, Beth knows what she looks like. She knows who she is. And this stuff? It’s not really – 

She shakes her head, tries to clear the thoughts, tries to think about Annie’s words after she’d picked her up, then again in the car as she’d driven them to the mall – that it’s just fun, right? That’s all. And hell, it’s not like she’s even talked to Rio yet. Not like she’s locked herself into anything that she can’t get herself out of. 

Stepping down another aisle, Beth ignores Ruby and Annie’s chatters behind her, and finally pauses in front of a display – a porcelain-skinned mannequin decked out in a black halter bra with a thick leather collar, corset, thong little more than a string, up between her rounded, plastic cheeks, and just _god_ , Beth thinks, looking away, trying to catch her breath. 

It’s too much. Any alcohol-fuelled confidence is gone, and this is just about ten different types of mortifying. She should go, that’s what she thinks, tell Annie and Ruby the whole thing was silly, that they should get lunch instead, forget its Rio’s birthday at all, because hell, what do birthdays really matter after you turn 21 anyway? And besides - -

“Are you okay?” a voice asks, cutting through Beth’s thoughts, and she blinks up to see a girl staring back at her, sweet faced and wide eyed. She has a nametag on that reads _Tessa_ , her dark hair pulled back into a top knot, and god, she can’t be older than twenty-five herself, and Beth must be about ten shades of red to go with each and every one of those types of mortified, but she nods, clears her throat. 

“Yeah,” Beth says, adjusting her grip on her handbag. “Yes, sorry. Just looking.” 

“Well let me know if I can help at all,” Tessa says, putting a bundle of bras back onto the rack. She runs her hands over the hangers, evening them out. “Our new season line only came out last week, so we have a lot of exciting new looks.” 

Beth nods a little, non-comital, and moves sideways down the aisle, around to another rack of black mesh thongs, and she can feel herself pulling a face when Annie suddenly springs up over the other side of the rack, holding up a red latex leotard with a zipper from the bust to the asshole. 

“Before you say no,” Annie says, grinning wide, thrusting it out at her. “Consider saying _yes_.” 

It’s all Beth can do to give her her best dead-eyed stare, desperately willing any redness out of her face. 

“I’m not even going to dignify that with a reply,” Beth says, and Annie just rolls her eyes. 

“Well, joke’s on you, sister, because you just did.” 

She seems to get the hint at least, dropping her arm and making a production out of walking it back towards the rack she found it on. Beth watches her go before turning her attention back to the displays in front of her. After a moment, she thinks, _screw it_ , and grabs one of the black lace bras, wandering over to the mirror and holding it up against herself. Not that she can exactly see it right when she’s in a purple sweater and jeans, and it’s definitely not her size, but still. She does her best. She frowns a little, trying to picture it, but just - - it’s not - - 

“Can I ask you a question?” 

The voice sounds soft behind her, delicate almost, and Beth spins on the spot to see the shop assistant, Tessa, standing behind her, restocking panties on one of the nearby racks. It’s enough to make Beth blink, but she nods, chin jerking down a little. 

“Who are you shopping for?” 

Beth blinks again, laughs, something deliberate and careful to hide the thread of embarrassment underneath it. She waves the hand holding the bra to her chest in a little bit of a production. 

“Um, me?” Beth says it, asks it, painting on her grin, and Tessa tilts her head from side-to-side. 

“See, I’ve worked here for a while, and to me it looks like you’re buying this for somebody. You can totally tell me if I’m way off the mark, but this stuff,” she gestures to the black lace bra, then back, to the red latex leotard Annie’s now showing Ruby. “Doesn’t really seem like your jam.” 

The heat rises in her chest, and a part of her that wants to balk, wants to ask this girl who she thinks she is, but then - - then there’s a softness to Tessa’s look, an unguarded, openness that Beth’s not used to, and she can feel her shoulders sag, feel herself exhale. 

She shrugs, shifts her weight, lowers the bra to her side. 

“It’s…I guess it’s a birthday present.” 

“For a boyfriend?” 

Beth blanches a little, feels her toes curl in her shoes. And god, her hangover’s bad. Still pounding up through her head, and she’s tired, and she regrets even thinking about this, but still, she adjusts her grip on her purse, fidgets a little on the spot, thinking on how best to answer. 

“Not exactly? It’s new,” she decides on, biting the inside of her cheek, and then, against her better judgement. “I was married twenty years, and this is like,” she gestures vaguely. “My first thing after that, and he’s younger, and _very_ different, and I just…I don’t know.” She blinks hard, embarrassed. “I don’t know what looks good, and I guess I don’t really know what he’s into.” 

And she’s not sure what she’s expecting, but it’s not Tessa to smile gently, kindly, and shrug. 

“Well for starters, don’t think about what he’s into,” she says. “Have a look around and see what you like. Because honestly? I’ve worked here like, three years, and you feeling sexy is the most important thing, because trust me, I know it might sound like a tagline, but if _you_ feel sexy, he’s going to think you look sexy.”

Beth stares at her, and god, this girl must be half her age, but she suddenly feels overwhelmed with - - with what, she’s not sure – her hangover probably, but also anxiousness, uncertainty, and a suddenly uncontrollable affection for this girl who just seems to have understood, to have obviously seen enough Beths’ to know what to say to make this Beth feel a lot less alone. 

She exhales a little laugh, scrunching up her nose, hand finding her own cheek, rubbing a little there. 

“Maybe I need help?” she says, and Tessa’s face splits into a broad, earnest smile, dumping the last of the panties on the rack so that she can clap her hands together gleefully. 

“Okay, I’m going to get you some things. You go get your friends, head to the changerooms, we’ve got this. We’re gonna shop.”

*

It feels like it’s the hundredth thing she’s tried on – something teal this time, with a ribbon over her ass, and Beth just - -

Beth grimaces.

“Well, do you like it?” Tessa asks her through the changeroom door, and Beth’s grimace only deepens. 

Dean would love it. Dean had always liked blacks and reds and bold coloured things, things with straps and leather bits and see-through bits and sparkles, things Beth had always, if she was honest, found tacky and garish and just - - _loud_ in a way that she’s never been. 

“No,” she says finally, honestly, and through the wall, Tessa hoots, rapping her knuckles against the changeroom door as Beth pulls the panties down and off from over her own, then the bra, replacing it with her own, before tossing them over the changeroom door. 

“Progress! Okay, give me a minute,” Tessa says, and Beth can hear the clip of her heels on the linoleum floor of the shop, Annie’s voice chattering beside her as she follows, and Beth’s grimace folds into a light scowl. She throws her sweater back on, but doesn’t bother with her pants, as she pulls the changeroom door open and eyes Ruby, leaning back against the wall of the hallway, still nursing her latte, her skin still a little pallid. 

They just stare at each other like that for a minute, the caramel candles that deck out the shop burning thick around them, and screw it, Beth thinks, tilting her chin. It’s all it takes for Ruby to push off the wall, stepping into the changeroom behind her. 

“This is just stupid, right?” Beth says, not even giving Ruby the chance to say anything before she closes the door behind them. “I just - -”

She lets out a shaky breath, almost instantly deflating, as she presses back into the mirrored wall of the changeroom, watching as Ruby does the same against the opposite side, barely two feet of space between them. 

Outside of here, Beth can vaguely hear Annie’s voice, always a notch too loud, as she babbles to Tessa about tattoos and _just a real, wholeass vibe, y’know?_ and then a _voice that could basically spread you out from across town_ , and god, it’s embarrassing, but it’s also just - - she wonders what Tessa must be thinking. Wonders what anyone thinks he sees in her, her mind racing back to the woman from the carpark, to the woman she’s sure is Marcus’ mom – prettier and younger, slimmer, with - - She shudders, annoyed at herself, rubbing at her forehead a little instead, trying to dismantle the tension there. 

“What’s stupid?” Ruby asks, and the question comes as such a surprise that Beth almost pulls her neck out looking up so fast. Across the changeroom, Ruby’s face is careful, but somehow still soft, still honest, and Beth doesn’t know how to answer it, so she doesn’t. 

“Have we ever been shopping like this before?” she asks instead, ignoring Ruby’s curious look at the question. “I really don’t feel like we have. How weird is that? I mean, I feel like all we talk about anymore is sex and crime.” 

It’s a lie and they both know it. Still, Ruby laughs, folding her arms across her chest and pushing her shoulders slightly back into the mirror. 

“I mean, sure,” Ruby agrees. “At least with Annie. I feel like I know more about that girl’s vagina than I do about my own.” 

And it’s enough to make Beth bark on a laugh, cringing, because honestly - - same. 

She can’t hear Annie anymore. Can’t really hear anything outside of the dull thrum of recent pop hits on the store’s sound system and a different shop assistant helping a different customer. They’re talking about something white. Something for a wedding night. Something honest and sexy, the customer giggling, brimming with excitement, and Beth huffs out a little breath, looking down at her bare, pale thighs, at the stretchmarks like skeleton fingers there. She frowns. 

“You know, I didn’t know you and Dean hadn’t had sex since Jane until we were in that dumpster,” Ruby says suddenly, her voice cutting through Beth’s thoughts, and she looks up, blinking rapidly at her. She opens her mouth, closes it again, and Ruby continues. “I mean, damn, B, would you have told us about sleeping with Rio at all if Annie hadn’t figured it out?” 

And Beth opens her mouth, but nothing comes out. The words tangling in her throat, sticking to the roof of her mouth like the caramel these stupid candles smell like, and she wants to say it wasn’t ever that easy, that she knows exactly what this looks like, but has no idea what it _is_ , that she couldn’t _bear_ the thought of letting either of them down, that this thing with him feels too fragile, too precious, too easily ruined. That it doesn’t mean anything. That maybe it means too much. But those words weren’t come to the fore. 

“I mean it’s okay,” Ruby continues. “Honestly. I - - ” she sighs, deeply. “God, Beth. You know what I thought of a few weeks ago? I thought of us on my front porch that afternoon when you told me you and Dean finally did it. And I remember how excited we were, and how much we talked about it, and you said it hurt, but it was okay, and then I just. All I could think was how you were barely older than Sara is right now, and Dean was like, almost a _man_.” 

And Ruby, she just stares at her then, with so much love, and so much pain, and Beth has to tear her gaze away. 

“I’m sorry,” Ruby says, rubbing a little at her eyes. “I’m hungover as all hell, and I just. I love you. I don’t ever want to see you hurt again. I don’t ever want to see some man-child with his dick in his hand take advantage of you again. And yet at the same time, to a _terrifying_ , vaguely sexual degree, I really, really want you to have some good fucking orgasms. Because you deserve it. You deserve more than that, but you deserve the orgasms too.” 

There’s a sound in the changeroom next to them, the bride-to-be having lowered her voice, and Beth’s vaguely aware that she and the shop assistant are listening, and she’s surprised to find that she doesn’t care. 

“You know I can remember? I think that makes it worse,” Beth says, and at Ruby’s inquisitive look, Beth just looks away, her fingers finding one of the silk negligees in the pile of _tried on clothes_ beside her. 

“What can you remember?” Ruby asks, when Beth lets her eyelids flutter shut, squirms a little on the spot, embarrassed at even the thought, but - - but they’re here now. 

“The last time I enjoyed having sex with Dean. The last - - you know, I had with him. I mean, we did it after, I mean, we had kids after, but it never quite - - I mean, _I_ never…” 

She shakes her head, and Ruby lets her, watching her, her expression soft, and something in the twist of Ruby’s look makes Beth look away, makes her catch the sob in her throat, the deep, stifling feeling of anger and shame and grief in her collapsing like a house of cards, because she should’ve - - she could’ve - - 

“You were so young when you started dating,” Ruby says cutting through her thoughts again, and Beth frowns. 

“So were you and Stan.” 

But Ruby just shrugs, pushing slightly off the mirror, just that half-step closer. 

“You and Dean had a different sort of relationship.”

And yeah, Beth thinks, but she also doesn’t think that’s an excuse. She’s made too many of them. She’s tired of making excuses. 

“I should have left him a lot sooner than I did.” 

“Sure,” Ruby says, like it’s nothing at all. “We taking your time machine or mine?” 

It’s enough to make Beth choke out a laugh, and Ruby smiles gently back at her, gestures between them. “You did what you had to, B, and you can’t change the past. Playing _What If_ isn’t going to achieve anything except make you miserable. What matters is you _did_ call it. That you _did_ leave. That you guys are, against all odds, managing to co-parent and take care of those kids. And you’re moving on with someone. Would it be someone I’d recommend? Probably not, but hey, I have eyes, I have ears. I get it.” 

Beth laughs a little, considers this, shifting her weight.

“He’s a lot more experienced than me,” Beth says, how much more, she doesn’t know, doesn’t want to know. 

“Sure, but girl, the way that boy looks at you? I don’t think it matters. Hell, this,” she gestures to the piles of lingerie. “I don’t think it really does either. The amount of time he spends eye-fucking you, I don’t think he ever even really sees clothes on you. And besides, our friendly sales assistant might look like she should be preppin’ her college essay, but I don’t think she’s wrong. I know it’s his birthday, but whatever. He didn’t tell you anyway. This should be for you, and if he knows what’s good for him, he’ll take it, and he’ll like it.” 

Beth lets out a breath, and looks at Ruby with something earnest and joyful in her chest, and god, she really does love her. 

“I hate you,” she says instead, and Ruby just grins. 

“I hate your face.” 

There’s a pause, and then, because she can’t not say it now: 

“I think I like him,” Beth whispers. “Like, a _lot_ ,” and Ruby just laughs. 

“Yeah, babe, we know.” 

Beth shudders out a half-laugh of her own, and she means to reply, is going to, when there’s a flurry of knuckles against the door, and they pull it open to Tessa and Annie, carrying an armful of silks and satins, a bustle of energy, cutting through the quiet. 

“Okay, so we got a bit of lace, a bit of ribbon – ” 

And before Tessa can even keep going, Ruby interrupts. 

“You like flowers,” Ruby says to Beth, almost a little shyly, watching Beth shuffle a little awkwardly back. They look at each other – both aware that this is something that they haven’t done before, and Beth smiles, and then Ruby does too. Then she turns to Tessa and says, her voice firmer, “Beth likes flowers.” 

“Flowers!” Tessa says, throwing her hands up, briefly glaring at Annie. “Why didn’t you say so.”

*

It’s Ruby who gets her to text him at the restaurant they go to for lunch.

(“Come on, B, you’re not gonna know unless you _ask him_.”) 

And still. She can’t quite muster the will to ask him about his birthday, or wish him a happy one, so she asks him instead if he’d be free to talk business the next night, and he agrees, offering up his bar, before she replies with a _Let’s meet at mine. Dean has the kids._

It’s as much of an invitation as she’s ever given him (hopes, maybe, already that’s a gift), but when he texts back only to ask for a time, she’s the one who’s grateful. 

And it’s good in theory, having the time to prepare, and she sleeps well that night, but spends most of the next day jittery with energy. She thinks too much about his _day before_ \- about his actual birthday, about the things Marcus did, about the special dinner with the family, about Marcus’ mommy, or any number of women Rio might have chosen to spend the night with, who he might have _told_ , and despite her best efforts, the thoughts won’t quite dislodge.

So she tries to focus on what she can. On baking during the day, and then unpacking all the things she’d bought the day prior. After the lingerie store, after lunch, they’d been almost loose with fantasy, and, at their encouragement, she’d ended up buying about a million different types of candles from Bed, Bath & Beyond, and then doubled back to the lingerie store when Ruby had told her about these massage oil candles that her and Stan loved that she swore she saw there, and then the grocery store when Annie hadn’t been able to stop talking about aphrodisiac foods and it had somehow gotten easier as the day had gone on, and it was only now, a day later, a few hours out, unpacking it all, that she was struck with the thought that this all seemed kind of silly. 

_If you think it’s sexy, he will too_ , she reminds herself, huffing out a breath, laying new sheets on the bed and setting up her array of candles across the bedside tables, the dressers, a few by the doors and a little out from the walls. When she’s done, she showers, shaves, washes her hair and blows it out, curling it softly around her face. She does her make-up mostly minimally, but adds a cat eye like she hasn’t done in years, before she figures, _right_. 

She pulls the lingerie, still wrapped in tissue paper, out of the bag, and bites her lip. It’s almost painfully delicate – a blush pink bra with soft cups so light and so thin, they’re almost sheer. Into the fabric, roses have been embroidered in in pink and pale blue thread. The panties match – not a thong this time, but a soft lace brief, with a matching suspender belt, suspenders and stockings, as well as a sheer pink negligee to go over the top. 

(“It’s very feminine,” Beth had said in the store, biting the inside of her cheek and letting Ruby peak her head in to look. 

“Damn, B,” was all Ruby had said, wide-eyed, and Beth had looked at herself in the mirror and _blushed_.) 

It takes her almost ten minutes to get all of it on now, and she looks at herself again, feeling herself growing jittery with nerves, and no, she thinks, steeling herself. She lights all the candles, before ducking into the kitchen, making neat work of pouring the strawberries, melted chocolate and honey into their respective bowls, and placing them on Dean’s old, now vacant bedside table. She doubles back for the bucket of ice, dropping in a bottle of champagne, grabbing two glasses, and spending almost a half hour adjusting all of it, trying to lay it out in a way that looks casual but also thoughtful, like oh, she just threw it all together. 

When she gets it as right as she thinks she ever will, she sits down in the bed, toeing into her stilettos, and grabbing her phone, searching _sexy poses_ to be like, like, candidly, seductively sprawling on her bed when he opens the door, and she tries a few out, but mostly feels ridiculous. Finally she settles on one that at least feels almost normal, and sits up, checking the time on her phone and - - and god, it’s still a half hour until he gets here (at the earliest, he doesn’t tend to worry too much about meeting her schedule at the best of times), and you know what? 

Maybe she should cancel. 

Maybe this is stupid. Maybe - - 

Maybe she needs a drink, she thinks, toeing off her heels and sliding off the bed. She grabs her champagne flute from the nightstand and trundles off into the kitchen, popping the spare bottle and pouring herself a glass. She’s still got time, and she figures a healthy buzz can only be a good thing, right? A way to dull the humming line in the back of her head that tells her he’s going to think this is _funny_ , not sexy, or worse - - worse, that he’ll be _annoyed_ , that he cancelled better plans, with better women because he thought this was going to be about business - - 

But.

No. 

Not going there.

She downs her drink like a shot, almost jittery with energy still as she pours herself a second glass, catching a glimpse of her reflection in the hallway mirror – and - - and she almost doesn’t recognise herself. 

It’s just the colour, that’s all. The pale pink and the faintest blue somehow softening her even further, melding her body into something dreamy, something inherently, deeply womanly, and it’s strange to capture her reflection now and remember how she’d felt in that changeroom, even though she knows it shouldn’t. It just makes her feel romantic is all, like a painting, like Venus, like some goddess of springtime and fertility, some naked blossom, and god. Ruby hadn’t been wrong when she’d said Beth liked flowers. 

And maybe it won’t be his thing, but she thinks that’s okay. Thinks maybe that this is _her_ in a way she hasn’t let herself feel in a circumstance like this before, and she twirls a little with her glass and the champagne bottle, letting her negligee swish up around her, the cool air finding the skin between her stockings and her ass, and she grins, humming a little to herself as she floats back towards her bedroom. She slips in, easy as a dream, dancing a little as the cold of the champagne bottle nips her fingers, and she turns, only to scream, dropping both the bottle and her glass, shattering them across the floor. 

Because of course he’s there. Of course he’s slipped in from the outside door, dark in his black jeans, black button-down shirt, and she sees it, the double take he makes. 

Beth just holds a hand to her chest, trying to reclaim her breath, trying to still her palpating heart. 

“Don’t _do that_ ,” she hisses over at him, and Rio just grins, amused, making a point of dragging his gaze across her body, but she refuses to acknowledge it, not when she’s trapped amidst a graveyard of glass. 

She groans, seeing the champagne soaking into the rug, the shattered bottle spread wide between her and the bed, and she instantly crouches, grabbing some of the bigger pieces of glass up in her hands. She’s focused on not cutting herself when she hears Rio’s feet quick across the floorboards, feels his hand below hers, pulling the glass from it. 

“You ain’t wearin’ much, mami, let me do that.” 

And she tries to shake him off, she _does_. 

“No, it’s fine, I’ll just -- ” 

“There’s glass everywhere. You’re gonna cut yourself.” 

“It’s _fine_ ,” she says again, grabbing another chunk of glass with the hand he doesn’t have ahold of, and it’s sudden, the way he groans, annoyed, grabbing her wrist and yanking her up to stand and, in one fluid motion, grabbing her by the back of her thigh, leaning his own body down enough to push a bony shoulder into her middle, lugging her over his shoulder like a sack. She squawks, loudly, blushing bright at his sudden breathless laugh, dropping all the glass pieces to shatter against the floor again. His hand that was on her wrist reaches up beneath her negligee to grab her ass hard, before he drops her unceremoniously onto her bed. 

“Stay,” he says, voice firm, but she can tell he’s biting back a smirk. “You got a broom and shit?” 

And it’s enough to make her look at him, really look – at the faded cut at his lip and the bags below his eyes and the still altogether too handsomeness of his face, and she just - - she sighs. Staring up at him, annoyed. 

“In the laundry room.” 

With a grin, he strides across the room and out of it, glass crunching beneath his shoes, and Beth groans, covering her face briefly in sheer mortification before thinking _screw it_ and scooting back off the bed and starting to pick up the bigger pieces of glass. 

She has a handful of it again before she hears the door creak open and Rio huff in irritation as she steps in. She refuses to look up though, keeping her gaze fixed on the shattered glass covering her floor as Rio makes quick work of sweeping it up around her. She finds the dustpan he’d brought with him, emptying her handful of glass into it, and reaching for the bucket of water he’d brought too, grabbing the mop to start washing up the champagne. 

It’s not exactly elegant work, but at least it doesn’t take long, and she’s sure there’ll be bits that she’s missed, but just makes the mental note to vacuum and do it all again tomorrow as she wrings the mop out for the last time, pushing it and the bucket back against the far wall. With a sigh, she looks up, over, to Rio watching her carefully, broom still in hand, an expression she can’t name nor read on his face, and so she tilts her head, a little shyly over, gesturing for him to put the broom with the mop. 

It’s all the prompting he takes, and she’s glad for it, stumbling forwards to the other side of her bed, turning away from him and stepping a little awkwardly into the stilettos she’d set out earlier. Trying to recover herself, she takes a breath, smoothing her hands down the belly of her negligee, fiddling a little with the strap, and she’s about to say something - - something sexy, maybe (although she has no idea what), when Rio’s voice cuts through the quiet. 

“We goin’ out?” 

Beth spins around to face him, clocks his wide-eyed, faux innocent expression, and she can feel the heat finding her cheeks, her own eyes widening. 

“No,” she says. “I- - I mean, it’s a - -”

And then she looks down at herself, at her heels, at the tiny speck of broken glass they missed on the floor by the toe of her shoe, at the water stains from mopping, soaking through the feet of her stockings, and suddenly feels ridiculous. She steps out of her heels, then promptly steps back into them. She clears her throat.

“I mean I - - I did research,” she says, waving her hands around, and Rio arches an eyebrow at her, his lips falling open as he briefly takes her in. 

“Research,” he parrots, and Beth squares her shoulders, lifts her chin. 

“Yes, research.” 

It’s enough to make him take a sudden step forwards, to wave a hand out between them. 

“Well, it ain’t the way I usually talk business,” he drawls, dragging his gaze across her body. “But if it’s what the _research_ says.” 

Beth rolls her eyes, and thinks of actually talking business just to spite him, something about any number of the deals or the drops they have coming up, about what he thinks they owe him, but then she thinks that might just be more embarrassing in the long run so she caves. 

“You might have wondered why you ended up with a cupcake the other day.” 

And whatever he’d been expecting, it apparently wasn’t _that_. He reels back, forehead furrowed, lips stretched into a confused grin, and Beth fumbles, toeing out of her heels again. 

“What I mean is, I said you couldn’t, and then you got one, and because it’s - - well, I wanted to - - ” 

And he’s still just staring, and the realisation hits her like a ton of bricks. 

“He ate both, didn’t he? He ate both the cupcakes.”

Rio just laughs. 

“I didn’t realise he got two.” 

“Kids are evil for sugar,” she says, taking a breath. The sudden, intense feeling of mortification snakes up her legs and grips at her chest. She takes another slow, steady breath. “Was it even your birthday yesterday?” 

And that seems to briefly blindside him. 

“It’s just what he said,” Beth says, waving her hands out. “And I guess I got a bit in my own head? You know what, let’s forget all this.”

And it’s just - - she feels mostly just stupid all over again, but when she looks up, Rio’s smile has taken on an edge that she hasn’t seen before – something – she’s not sure. A little too pleased, a little too predatory. It sends all her blood south. He gestures a hand out, casting a Z over her body.

“Oh, so this is a birthday present?” 

She blushes, gestures to the room more widely – at the candles, at the strawberries, at the not-shattered champagne bottle. 

“I mean, this was supposed to be, yes.” 

“How come you’re the only thing that’s wrapped then?”

The words are dart quick, gravelly, and they’re enough to make her breath catch, and from the way his grin widens, mellows, she knows he’s seen it. Beth squares her shoulders. She powers through. 

“Please explain to me how you’d wrap a strawberry?”

And he laughs then, something honest and loud and boyish, and she _hates it_ , and she also - - she also really, really likes it. 

“This shit’s a trip, man,” he says, his laugh guttural and too loud in the quiet of her bedroom. “Some real _Eat, Pray, Love_ bull.” 

“That’s a very dated reference,” she tells him, and it only sets him off again. 

It’s enough to make her huff out a breath, prickly with irritation now, and she ends up just sitting down on the bed, scooting up towards the headboard and watching him, waiting for him to calm down. It takes him a minute, but when he does, he rocks a little on his feet, shifting his weight as he looks her over, something that, if she didn’t know him any better, she’d say was close to affectionate passing over his face. He lifts his shirt just enough to pull his gun out of his belt and place it on top of her dresser (and god, the fact that it doesn’t even phase her anymore), before kicking off his shoes, leaving them on the floor with her heels and clambering up onto the bed on all fours. He grabs her ankles, yanking her down the bed until she’s underneath him. 

He just looks at her then, tilts his head, and Beth resists the urge to squirm away. All that irritation bleeding out into a feeling no less prickly, just prickly in a different way, her skin somehow sensitive just to his look. She’s not sure what to say, the tension too much, just knows she needs to break it, and her eyes leave his and drift towards the food tray she’d set up, and _right_ , she thinks, going back to her plan. 

“Would you like a strawberry?” 

“No,” he says it immediately, honestly, half laughing, and Beth frowns, and he clocks it, she can see him clock it, and then – like it’s nothing at all – shift gears. “I’d like to see you have one though.”

Beth sucks in a breath, watching him, watch her, and scoots back on the bed, out from underneath him, enough to sit up again against the pillows. She picks one of the strawberries from the bowl, debating only briefly whether to put it in the chocolate or the honey, and then accidentally drops it in the pot of melted chocolate and tries to play it off like she meant to do it. The fruit is so heavy with it that when she drags it out, she dribbles some of it accidentally on her thigh before she sucks it into her mouth, pursing her lips around the fruit like she’d watched during the day in bad YouTube tutorials, and god, she feels stupid, and she thinks Rio _knows_. Knows what she’s done, knows what this _is_ , but his eyes are half lidded as she licks the chocolate off the fruit and then eats it. 

“Missed a bit,” he says, eyes going down to her thigh and the dribble of chocolate there and before she can do a thing about it, he’s swiping it off with his thumb and sucking it into his mouth. 

She exhales, smiling, and Rio grins at her, and her hand fumbles out, but Rio beats her to it, grabbing one of the strawberries and dipping it into the honey. She watches him push it in and out, an oddly intimate gesture, before he swirls it gently around, gathering as much honey as the small fruit can collect, and honestly? Honestly she just thinks he really likes honey, until he jerks it out of the dish, arm quick until it’s not, until she feels dollops of honey slipping off the fruit, dropping heavy over her chest, down her cleavage, dampening the bust of her negligee. 

She just gives him a look as he says, voice light, “Damn, sorry,” nudging the strawberry gently against her lips, making her suckle the honey off it to stop it sliding down her chin, and when she’s finished, she takes the whole thing in her mouth, biting it up to the stem, and Rio laughs hotly. 

She lowers a hand to swipe the honey off her breasts, only Rio grabs her wrist, holding her arm away, makes her watch as he reaches back for another strawberry, dipping it this time instead in the chocolate, repeating the gesture of letting the chocolate drip down her chest. This time making no illusions of it. She just gives him another look, leaning forwards to bite the fruit off the stem again, only to have him pull it away. 

Beth reaches towards him with her free hand, ready to pluck the strawberry from his grip, when suddenly he dives forwards, licking a hot, wet stripe up her chest, lapping up the chocolate and honey. She gasps at the suddenness of it, her free hand going to the back of his head as he turns his attention to her other breast, kissing, biting, sucking up the dollops of honey. He drifts lower, mouthing at her nipples through the lace cups, and she clenches her legs around Rio’s hips, feeling him already half-hard in his jeans, grinding up against her cunt. 

“Rio,” she breathes, and she can feel him smile, looking up at her, resting his pointed chin on her right breast. His fingers briefly play with the hem of her negligee, finally pushing it up her belly as he sits back to dip the strawberry in honey again. He dribbles it down her stomach this time, and she shivers, the feeling strange on the skin there, and he’s soft as he licks and nips his way down her belly, sucking a hickey onto her hip, and she gasps a little when he lowers down again to her cunt, breathing a laugh into her when he feels how wet she is already, nosing up into her, his breath hot through her panties. He mouths her there briefly, enough to make her keen, before sitting up again, rolling off her to lie beside her on the bed. 

Beth blinks, briefly confused, and he watches her and then, with a quick, easy shrug, says, “Yeah, I think you should touch yourself.” 

Her eyes widen, her mouth hanging briefly open, and he just gives her a shit eating grin, popping the strawberry into his own mouth and eating it. He makes a pleased face, reaching across her to grab another strawberry and eat that one too. 

Beth bites her lip, looks up at the ceiling, a strange sort of thrill uncurling in her stomach at the thought, even as she feels a blush find her cheekbones. She pushes a hand up to her lips, running her nail back across her lower lip before sucking two fingers gently into her mouth, lapping her tongue beneath them, and pulling them out with a wet pop. She looks over at him then, a little nervously, and finds herself emboldened by the heated look on his face, by his full and complete attention. 

Trailing her fingers down her chest, her belly, she plays briefly with the top of her suspender belt before dipping below the hem of her panties, slipping her fingers between her folds as she finds her clit. She lets out a shaky breath, her eyelids fluttering, and she can feel his gaze on her, feel the bed move beneath her as he rolls onto his side to better watch her, and her toes curl within the stockings at the thought, her thighs clenching together. 

She lets out a breathless little moan, can’t help it, and moves her hand down enough to slip a finger inside herself, then a second, fucking herself, her hips rocking up off the bed, trying to get deeper, trying to get to the right spot, but they won’t quite _get there_. Her eyes are closed now, she doesn’t even remember closing them, and she could almost be alone, almost feels it, only then there’s Rio’s voice, cutting through the quiet as he grabs the hand that’s not inside of her. 

“What’s wrong, baby?” he coos. “These don’t do the job no more?” 

Beth blinks her eyes open, looks at him, wets her lips, and he hums, tilting his head to the side, finally touching her, but not where she wants. Nowhere _near_ where she wants, as he cups the back of her neck in his big hand, the heel of it pushing her jaw back to keep looking at him. 

“I bet they don’t, huh?” he purrs. “Those sweet little hands of yours, I bet they’re too soft. Too small.” 

He lowers his own hand, lips pulled into a grin as he pushes the crotch of her panties aside, pushing one of his fingers inside her beside her own. She gasps at the suddenness, her own fingers slipping out, making room for another one of his, and the thing is - - the thing is, he’s not _wrong_. She thinks she might love his hands – his long, broad, _strong_ fingers, his rough fingers, his really-too-good-at-this fingers. He fucks them up into her slowly, finding the spot she couldn’t reach too quickly, as both her hands find his neck, scratching at his shoulders. She pulls him in to kiss her, her mouth urgent against his, and the heat in it and the desperate, rough way he kisses her is in direct contrast to the slow, practiced pace he’s set as his fingers fuck her.

And then - - and then he’s pulling away again, his fingers slipping out of her, and Beth is embarrassed by the long, high pitched keen she lets out. 

“You got any assistants?” he drawls, and Beth nods, tilting her head towards the drawers at her bedside, and Rio could slide off the bed and walk around, but chooses to crawl over her instead, enough that Beth’s senses are suddenly alight again with the smell of his cologne and his soap and just - - just _him_. She shudders, feeling herself clench as he pulls her vibrator out of the drawer, crawling back over her to her other side and passing it to her. He tilts his chin a little, telling her to use it, and she grabs it, lowering it to her clit and promptly switching it on. She does her best to ignore his bark of surprise. 

“Mami, that is _loud_.” 

“It’s not that loud,” she replies, eyelids fluttering shut as she holds it a little firmer against her clit through her panties. 

“I’ve heard planes take off quieter,” he says, still laughing, and Beth frowns a little, not wanting to feed his amusement, trying to focus on the feel of the vibrations instead. She pushes it a little harder against herself, and gasps. 

“Does it have volume settings? Like, can you choose? Is this what you like?” 

“It’s just old,” she says a little breathless, irritation prickling at her skin. 

“Yeah, you know they update this shit, right? It ain’t a pet. You don’t got to wait for it to die before you buy a new one.” 

“It works for me,” Beth replies, annoyed, circling it at her clit and shuddering before slipping it beneath the fabric of her panties and teasing it at her cunt. 

“You don’t got to be afraid of new tech, baby.” 

Beth lets her eyes slip shut, focusing on the vibrations, but not before she adds, “Says the guy who can’t operate a coffee machine.” 

And he laughs a little at that, and she can feel his gaze on her still as she slips the vibrator inside herself, her thighs clenching together, her mouth falling open, feeling the pulsing in her bones, and beside her, Rio _purrs_ , the noise almost otherworldly hot, and she’s getting so close - - so close only - - only Rio’s purring keeps going, a constant hum, and suddenly her eyes snap open, and she sees his shit eating grin, and realises that he’s just _imitating the sound of the vibrator_. She’s suddenly white hot with embarrassment and frustration, and she’s pulling the vibrator out of herself roughly and _throwing_ it at him, hitting him in the chest with it, and scrambling furiously off the bed as Rio cackles. 

There’s a minute where the vibrator, still on, bounces on the mattress, where she just was, until Rio leans over and turns it off. 

“C’mere,” he says, and Beth scowls, ignoring him as she grabs the bowl of chocolate and honey, the punnet of berries and making to go back to the kitchen to put them away.

“C’mere,” he repeats, firmer this time, and Beth spins on the spot. 

“No,” she hisses. “Sorry I was trying to be nice, sorry I was _trying_ to do something special.” 

He sits up with a groan, rolling his eyes as he scoots to the side of the bed, dropping his legs over the edge of it, his feet to the floor. For a second, she thinks he might get up, but he doesn’t, he just stares at her, visibly annoyed. 

“Sorry for trying to celebrate this maybe-maybe-not birthday of yours, because God forbid you tell me when it actually is like a normal person. Not that you _actually_ tell me anything. All _show no tell_ , huh? With your – your _reveals_ , and – your special _post_ , and your - - ”

“Elizabeth.” 

“Don’t _Elizabeth_ me, mister,” she thrusts the punnet of berries accusatorily at him, a couple of strawberries falling to the floor as she does it.” 

“Sorry I was trying to be a bigger, better person, sorry for actually wanting to make you feel better when you’ve obviously had a bad few weeks, but of course it’s not like you’re going to tell me about those either. Sorry for - - ” 

“You done?” 

And the words are short, sharp, _pissed off_ , and Beth can see it, in the way that he rocks his jaw back and forth, the way he licks his teeth, the way he just seems to _bristle_ with an energy that she wishes didn’t turn her on, but here they are. She huffs out a breath, looking away from him, still furious, but then he’s leaning forwards, still on the edge of the bed, hooking his fingers in the front of her suspenders and tugging her forwards, back towards him, back between his legs. She lets him, a head taller than him like this, as he lifts a hand to grab the chocolate bowl out of her arms, lowering it gently to the floor beside the bed, repeating the motion with the honey bowl and the punnet of berries. Then he looks up at her, his face open and soft. 

“Marcus didn’t lie,” he says, then huffs out a laugh. “Didn’t give me my cake apparently though neither.”

Beth breathes out a little laugh, shivering when the hand still hooked in her suspender spreads out beneath it instead, gripping her thigh.

“Kids are evil for sugar,” she repeats, and Rio hums out a vague noise of agreement. 

“And it _is_ nice,” he drawls, before lowering his gaze to her chest. He leans in, nuzzling her right breast, and Beth’s breath hitches when she feels his, warm there. “You’re nice.”

And she shivers all over again, but there’s something there in the vaguely tender tone of his voice that makes Beth ache, and she thinks about fucking him in the bathroom, Dean still at the bar, she thinks of missing Jane’s recital, she thinks of all those secret shoppers she’d kept in the dark, she thinks of the way she’d shut Ruby out when Ruby had only wanted to protect Stan, and her chest suddenly feels too tight. 

“Not always.” 

But Rio, he just makes a noise of disagreement, his fingers gliding down her side through her negligee, getting to the hem of it before slipping beneath it, and sliding all the way back up, the rough pads of his fingers on the too-soft skin there, making her keen. 

“I mean, you’re the one who said I wasn’t a good person,” she adds, trembling a little when his free hand slides up her inner thigh. 

“What’s good gotta do with bein’ nice?”

He mouths at her breast, wet tongued, sharp toothed, and Beth keens a little, unable to stop her hips bucking against him, and he laughs a little into her chest and she makes a point of grabbing at the back of his neck, digging her nails in there until she feels him let out a harsh breath. 

“I mean, I like it,” he drawls, and Beth shivers at his tone, thighs clenching as the hand holding her thigh drifts up, pushing her panties aside. He pushes a finger inside her again. “It’s all sugar until it’s salt with you, huh? I bet you think nobody knows the difference til they taste it, but I do. I can see it a mile away, Elizabeth.” 

Beth gasps as he pushes a second finger in, fucking her slowly with them, rubbing at her g-spot until she can feel her knees weaken. She adjusts her grip on his neck, pulling him closer into chest, and he bites hard on her breast, enough to make her cry out, to let go, for him to push roughly back. He looks at her, lips wet, but face oddly serious. 

“You gotta lighten up with this shit, darlin’.”

She stares at him, honestly.

“I don’t know how,” she confesses, and he rocks his jaw a little, nods, and crooks his fingers, watching her as she gasps, almost collapsing forwards against him. She moves a hand down to paw at his pants, but he’s way ahead of her, moving the hand on her waist to pull off his belt and he tries to push his jeans off one-handed, his other fingers still inside of Beth, but she keens, too needy, and then he groans in frustration, pulling out of her enough to shove off his jeans and underwear in one fell swoop, setting his ass back on the edge of the bed again and guiding her up and over his cock, pulling her down onto him. 

She gasps at the motion, at the sudden feeling of being _full_ , and they both take a second to adjust, Rio faster than her if his small, controlled thrusts are anything to go by, and Beth’s feet scramble against the floor, finding their bearings as she rises up and sinks down again, and they both groan. He buries his face in her neck, biting at the spot where her neck and her shoulder joins, then at her clavicle, at the top of her breast spilling over the lace of her bra, and she’s pushing down on him and she just - - she hates it, and she loves it, and all she wants is for him to see it, and all she wants is for him to _not ever_ see it. All the ways she wants him – how there’s no other man who has ever wriggled beneath her skin like him, none that have dominated her fantasies or argued with her in her head like him, no man who’s ever sat in front of her, or beside her, or just _with_ her like him, and she looks at him and knows that he does, and that he doesn’t. That he’s never quite sure with her, and she’s not sure if that gives her all the power or none of it. 

And she feels his pace increase beneath her, growing quicker, more erratic, and it’s not long before he’s shuddering below her, and then spilling inside her, and she’s tumbling through her orgasm straight behind him, toes scrambling against the floor, her chest heaving against his. And it’s just his hand, that’s all, brushing softly back through her hair, pulling it off her neck, away from the side of her face, and then they just - - 

They just sit there. 

He’s still inside her, the lace of her panties starting to pinch from where they’ve been pushed aside, and so she stands up, pulling off him, but she doesn’t get far, his hands slipping to the backs of her thighs, pulling her back down onto his own until she’s collapsed in his lap. 

“We’re gonna get you a new one,” he says suddenly, definitively, like he’s made this decision for her, and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know what he’s talking about. Beth rolls her eyes. 

“I like the one I have.” 

“Oh, you don’t gotta get rid of it. I know you ain’t got kids here every night no more but, mami, you gotta have somethin’ I ain’t gonna be able to hear from my place across town.”

She gives him a look, clambering unceremoniously off him again, opening her mouth to retort when she feels something warm squelch between her toes. Looking down, she realises she’s managed to plant a foot straight into the bowl of melted chocolate. 

Beth groans, lifting her foot, and Rio chuckles softly, grabbing her by the suspenders again and pulling her towards him. His fingers find the suspender clip, and he looks up at her, seeking permission, and when she nods a little too sharply, he puts a hand under her thigh, lifting her leg enough to unhook the clip at the front and the one at the back, sliding her stocking down her thigh, then her calf, his fingers ghosting down the muscle there, and it’s _not fair_ , that his touch can do this to her. 

Slipping her stocking down her ankle, he pulls it off her foot, throwing it to the corner of the room, his hand coming back, thumb pressing into the arch. He circles it a little there, massaging, and Beth groans, more than she’d like, his fingers trailing up to the chocolate dripping between her toes, only for his hand to pull back entirely. 

“Sorry,” he says, when Beth blinks at him. “I ain’t into feet.” 

She shoves him lightly, rolling her eyes.

“You licked my chest, my belly, my - - ” she stumbles over the word, which only makes him grin, so she powers through. “Maybe you just can’t finish the job.” she says, half mocking, and Rio makes a face of faux surrender before reaching around, grabbing her hard by the ass and licking a stripe up the side of her face instead. She yelps, slamming her foot down, smearing chocolate across the floor

“Maybe I just know what I like,” he drawls, and the implication that she doesn’t is loud enough to make her flush, even if maybe - - no, she’s _sure_ he didn’t mean it as an insult. Knows at this point that Rio, for all his faults, can be patient, and almost too gentle when it comes to letting her figure this stuff out. At least when it comes to _this_.

So she just rolls her eyes instead, pushing him a little as she collects herself and heads towards her en suite. She strips off her other stocking and washes both her feet in the bath, and ends up taking a washcloth to her inner thighs as well, washing off their cum and their sweat and just _them_ , giving herself a second to breathe as she does it. The night’s not gone entirely to plan after all, but also - - also it hasn’t _not_ gone to plan. She fixes her hair, touches up her make up, quick as she can, before she ducks back out, intending to clean up the spilt chocolate, but she gets back into the bedroom, and Rio’s already done it, the bowls of fruit and honey gone too, presumably back to the kitchen, and he’s taken off his shirt, so that he’s stark naked.

And the thing is, he’s found that one candle, the light from it licking up his chiselled body, because of course he has, and Beth can’t help but blush all over again. 

“It’s…” she fumbles for the words. “It’s a massage oil candle? Like it melts down into a - - a hot oil? I think? I don’t really know. Ruby and her husband like them, and the girl at the store said they were good.” 

Rio just squints at it a little, his lips twisting in amusement, and Beth just huffs out a laugh, more than a little bashful. She looks out over her bedroom, eyes zero’ing in on the champagne bottle, and right, she thinks. 

“Do you want a drink?” 

“What’d you get?” 

Beth strides over, grabbing the bottle of Bollinger out of the ice bucket and waving it over at him. Rio just wrinkles his nose a little. 

“Yeah, I ain’t really into champagne.” 

Beth gives him a look, grabbing the lone, unbroken flute off the bedside table and pouring him one, before striding back over to her own bedside table, grabbing her usual nighttime water glass and pouring one for herself. 

“Well, I don’t care,” she says, walking both glasses over to him. “I spent $80 a bottle on these, and given one is now getting the bugs drunk in my floorboards because of you, I think you can pretend to like it for a single evening.” 

He lets out a slight, exhaling laugh before wandering over to meet her halfway, taking the glass from her hands, and she tilts her own up to him. And she almost says it - - _Happy Birthday_ \- - but the words die on her tongue. Instead they clink glasses softly and both take a drink. 

They’re quiet for a minute, and she just watches him, tired, spent, the fading graze at his lip that she suddenly, desperately wants to kiss. She shakes her head a little, trying to find her breath, trying to smooth down the belly of her negligee. 

“Did you like your mug?” she asks, because it’s the first thing that comes to mind, and Rio laughs, the surprise sudden and evident in his tone. 

“Yeah, I liked it,” he says after a minute. “Kid ain’t no artist though. It ain’t somethin’ I’ll be showin’ off.” 

And Beth laughs, a little in commiseration, a little evilly. 

“One day I will show you the pencil cup that Kenny made for me in shop class. You’d never think that a pencil cup could somehow look _sexual_ , but this one does. I keep pretending I lost it, but it’s just in the closet in the laundry. I can’t let anyone ever see it. I mean Ruby has, but I can’t ever show Annie.” 

“But you can’t throw it out neither,” Rio says with a groan, and Beth laughs, louder this time, nodding.

“You can’t throw it out,” she agrees, waving her free hand around, and Rio grins at her. 

“Maybe that’s what I’ll do in my old age,” she muses. “Open a museum of all the horrible things children make their parents out of love. If they actually loved us, they’d never do it. I’d accept donations. We’d fill the place in minutes.” 

“Lu would have a lot more to give than me. She ends up with most of the shit he makes. I _know_ she got him to do this.” 

And Beth’s heart stutters a little. 

“Is Lu his mom?” 

Rio looks at her, a little surprised, like he hadn’t quite realised that he’d slipped. He nods slowly. 

“I was just –” she gestures a bit between them, and then, almost embarrassed. “I wasn’t prying. I wasn’t meaning to.” 

He nods again, looking at her, and she sees about a hundred expressions pass over his face before he finally settles. 

“Lu - - Luciana. We were friends for a long time - _are_ friends - and we fucked around for a bit,” he gives her a bit of a pained expression, and somehow she knows that it isn’t because of Lu, or Beth either, but rather because telling her this is difficult for him. He’s giving this to her, she realises suddenly. This information, this history - - somehow, it’s a gift. “She got knocked up. So we pretended we were more than friends who fucked around, and found out we weren’t. We co-parent and shit now, it’s good. She gets it. Fuck, she’s datin’ some guy-nurse from Cali. They’re happy. He treats her good, and Marcus likes him, so that’s what matters, right? He’s even patched me up a couple times.” 

And she has to ask it. Can’t stop herself. 

“Was she the woman you picked him up from? When I - -”

He just stares at her then, considering, and after a minute, he gives her a short, sharp nod. Something like relief swells in Beth’s chest. 

“Well, you guys made an adorable human,” Beth says, and Rio exhales a little laugh. 

He tilts his champagne flute up in something like a toast, and Beth cheers him again, taking a drink. She can hear the traffic outside, the always ominous quiet of her own house when the kids aren’t here, his breaths, hers. She shivers a little, has another drink.

“You and your husband were together a long time,” Rio says suddenly, disrupting the quiet, and it’s not a question, but it could be. 

“Yes,” she agrees, and almost leaves it there, would’ve, if it wasn’t for what Rio had offered, and she struggles to find a way to answer it. She finishes off her drink. “Um, he asked me to prom when he was a senior, I was a sophomore.” 

Beth just shrugs a little, ignoring the too attentive look on Rio’s face, and tries to think of a way to condense 25 years of love and pain and anger and joy and betrayal and heartbreak and complete, soul-destroying indifference into a couple of words, and finds she can’t. Doesn’t even know if she wants to. Not with Rio. 

She tops up her glass instead, offers the bottle to Rio, but he shakes his head, his glass still half full. 

“My mom wasn’t very well, in the,” Beth gestures vaguely to her head, avoiding his gaze. “She just. She had a lot of problems, especially after she had Annie, and our dad bailed because he made a new family he liked more than us with a woman he loved more than mom, and Dean was there, you know? And he was nice. His mom was nice. They helped out a lot and I mean I - - I didn’t really have anything, and I couldn’t go to college, because I needed to look after Annie because mom couldn’t…and in the end marrying Dean just made sense, and I always wanted kids.”

Beth lets out a breathless shudder. 

“I think it took us a long time to realise that we didn’t have to stay together. I think it took us a long time to realise we were never in love.” 

He just stares at her, an expression she can’t read on his face as he considers her, and Beth plays a little with the strap of her negligee, tugs it, tries to cover herself better. 

“Well, you guys made adorable humans,” he drawls, echoing her, and the laugh that escapes her mouth surprises her. She looks at him, and she doesn’t know what the look on his face means, she just knows she wants him to keep looking at her that way for as long as she ever can. 

“I will show you this pencil cup one day,” she tells him, and he curves a little backwards, holds a hand to his chest like he’s been shot there. 

“Mami, why does that sound like a threat?” 

“Because it is,” Beth says. “It is a threat. You will never get the image of it out of your mind. It will scar you deeply. It will haunt your nightmares.”

He laughs, has a drink, and when he grimaces a bit at the (very nice!) champagne, she runs a finger down his nose to disrupt the creases. 

“How old are you?” she asks, inquisitive, soft, and Rio just watches her, his own face soft. 

“Twenty-six,” he tells her gently, and when Beth recoils, he laughs, loud and honest, grabbing her by the wrist before she can stray too far. 

“I’m jokin’, ma, add ten years.” 

“Thirty-six,” she groans, trying to twist out of his grip. “That’s only like, forty percent better.” 

“Why?” 

“Because I am _not_ thirty-six,” Beth says. “I’m not even in my thirties anymore. Legally and biologically speaking, I could be somebody’s grandmother.”

Almost adds that she feels it sometimes, when Annie’s bringing Sadie around – he’s always felt more a grandson than a nephew, despite being older than all her actual children. 

Rio just laughs at that, moving his other hand to her ass again, pulling her closer. “Oh, abuela,” he purrs, and Beth hits his chest, gesturing a hand out to his face. 

“ _No_ ,” she says, and Rio laughs all over again, letting her drift away from him, scowling back at him with more affection than she thought possible. She’s not sure what she plans on saying when Rio suddenly strides by her towards her dresser, gravitating back towards the candle. He grabs the jar, swapping it with his champagne flute, and holding it over to her and waving it in her direction. 

“We gonna try it?” and his voice is loaded down with scepticism, but it’s enough for Beth to fumble, put her glass down on her bedside table and clap her hands together. She scoots instantly onto the bed as Rio slides onto the bed too. He presses a heavy kiss to her lips, before turning around, offering her his back and passing the candle over his shoulder, and right, Beth thinks, grinning. She runs a finger, quick and light as anything, from the base of his skull the whole way down his spine, and Rio doesn’t _shiver_ , but something rolls beneath his skin that makes her think she got him pretty close. 

“Okay,” Beth says. “I don’t want to build you up too much right now, but I _did_ win a half-day massage workshop at a school fundraiser three years ago, so you know, I’m basically a professional.” 

Rio sucks in a breathy laugh as Beth scrapes the pads of her fingers down his head, before pressing gently against the pulse points at the base of his head. 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Beth says, pressing up gently against his back. “The instructor told me I was a natural. He said I had incredible hands and an amazing sense of the body.”

There’s a sudden quiet after her statement, and she feels the tension roll through his back, but tries to ignore it, getting into position behind him. 

“I bet he did,” Rio says suddenly, only his voice is oddly tight, and Beth rolls her eyes, because she knows that tone too well. 

“Who’s getting the benefits of it right now?” she asks, massaging her thumbs into the knots in his neck, and when he exhales something close to guttural, not replying, Beth just grins, clambering up onto her knees to get a better angle. 

He really is tense, but there aren’t any deep knots, not anything fundamentally wrought up in him, which she knows means he’s getting this elsewhere. She swallows the thought of it being another woman, and instead thinks - - thinks he gets it done properly, massages, somewhere nice. God, she knows he can afford it. And it immediately sets her off kilter, uncertain, because he’s probably had better massages, he’s probably just had _better_ \- - and she leans over, grabbing the massage oil candle to distract herself, blowing out the flame and pouring it onto her fingers and his back and - - 

And look, at least they both yelp. 

“ _Shit_ ,” he hisses, swiping furiously at his back, as Beth shakes her hands, desperate for the air to placate them, the smell of rosemary and candle wax and burnt skin filling the air between them. 

“I _know_ , okay?” she replies, her voice low, and Rio swivels on the spot to face her, like he’s going to say something cutting, but something in her face, in her shaking her hand, makes him instantly diffuse. Or, well, mostly.

He exhales a sharp breath, jerking his gaze from her fingers to her face, his lips set in a short, determined line. 

“This shit come with instructions?” 

“Yes.”

“You read ‘em?” 

Beth waves a hand out, her mouth open, as Rio narrows his gaze. 

“I talked to Ruby about it, and the shop assistant, who had both used it before, and - - ” 

He just looks at her, and she can see it, the red welt at his back already forming from the burn, but Beth ignores the pang of guilt in her guy, powers through, her own fingers raw. 

“They said it was great,” she tries, and Rio’s voice only pulls that much tighter.

“Is that what I asked?” 

Beth just stares at him, and he stares back, visibly pissed off, and she waves her arms around briefly, a little flabbergasted, and he just sucks in a breath. 

“Fuck, darlin’, this? This shit? It’s always the same with you, you always tryin’ to shortcut.” 

And wait, _what?_ Beth blinks, reeling back a little in her seat, feeling scorned, feeling - - just _feeling_. 

“Excuse me?” 

“Did I stutter?” 

His voice is mean, hell, his words are mean, and Beth just looks at him, at the careful neutrality of his voice, at him naked, in her bed, her in lingerie, the bags beneath his eyes, his split lip. Like this, she can see his ribs are bruised. She hadn’t known that, hadn’t seen it, but still. She shakes her head. 

“Why are you trying to start a fight with me?” 

“I ain’t tryin’ to start nothin’.”

“You are,” she says. “You’ve been itching for a fight for weeks. You haven’t been yourself since that night you came over. When you - - ”

And she can’t say it, and from the suddenly naked expression on his face, he can’t either. She wonders if he’d hoped she thought she’s dreamed it, if she thought it wasn’t real. If they could both not acknowledge it for long enough it wouldn’t be. And she sees it, usually can now, the second he puts his mask back on. 

“Oh, ‘coz you’re the authority on that, huh?” he says, voice snide. “Who I am?” 

“I didn’t say that.” 

“See I don’t really know where you get off, yeah? Thinkin’ you know jack shit because, what? You’ve seen my place? Coz I turned you out? Baby, you don’t know nothin’ about me.”

And god, isn’t that what she’s spent the last few days thinking. She can feel something hot and wet build behind her eyes, but she won’t give him the satisfaction of crying, won’t let him push away for - - for what? Trying to do something nice? Knowing him. She sniffs, squares her shoulders. 

“You’re just proving my point,” she says, and she doesn’t move or fluster this time, just sits there, watching him, and she’s surprised, how quickly he deflates. 

He huffs out a breath, looking away from her, still, somehow, electric with energy, and Beth leans over, dipping her fingers into the rosemary candle wax again, and it’s still warm, but not hot anymore, and she coats her fingers, before pressing them into his shoulder, and she’s not sure what reaction she’s expecting, but it’s not for him to shudder, almost collapse beneath her touch before suddenly surging up, flipping her on the bed, getting her onto her hands and knees and yanking her panties down, pressing his only just-half-hard cock against her ass cheek. 

She shudders in a breath, but then it’s just Rio, draped over her back, his breath hot and uneven, his hand coming to cover hers on the mattress, and the bruises are yellow, dark brown at his knuckles still, and oh, she thinks, lowering down to kiss them softly, before lifting herself back up, and she feels it, more than she sees it, his heaving chest stutter, his hand, clenching hard, somehow both possessive and grateful around her own. 

And somehow, she just knows it’s coming – the way he tears up her negligee, pushing it up over her shoulders, but she’s not expecting him to grab the candle, drizzling the now lukewarm, rosemary-scented oil over her back, his fingers ghosting down her spine, like she’d done to him maybe ten minutes before. She gasps, pushing her hips back against his crotch and it’s all it takes for him to groan, to surge forwards, pushing inside her again. 

His hands find her hips, yanking her back against him, burying himself deeper, and Beth keens, trying to raise a hand to graze against the back of his neck, only he sets up a little straighter, a little further away from her, thrusting into her at an almost punishing pace, and Beth gasps, almost collapsing forwards, but he catches her, holds her, until she has one arm wrapped around his almost tenderly. And he _needs_ this, she realises. Something both furious and loving, right now - - right now, that’s what he needs, and so she tilts back into it, feels the satisfying length of him, and it’s only then that he leans forwards, that he bites the back of her neck before pressing a kiss against it, and Beth wraps a hand around, stroking the back of his neck, and she’s not sure how long it takes him to cum, a while she thinks, long enough she knows that she’s going to _ache_ tomorrow. Finally though he does, thrusting hard and deep inside her, coming there, his body a little wobbly as he shudders through the aftershocks. 

After a moment, he rolls off her, drags a hand over his face and turns to look at her studiously, and he must see something in her face, because he instantly tries to lower a hand to her clit, but she bats him off. 

“I’m okay,” she tells him, and he looks at her almost guiltily, and so she curls a little closer, pressing a kiss to his lips. “I’m good, really.” 

He doesn’t look like he believes her as he tears his gaze away from her and up on her ceiling, and Beth bites the inside of her cheek. She feels too-slick with all that oil, naked now from the waist down, an ache between her legs from how hard he’s fucked her, with an electric spark of arousal still amidst it from not having cum. She wriggles a little closer to the warmth of his body. 

“I’m going to have to tell Ruby that oil was awful,” she says with a sigh, and whatever either of them thought she was going to say, it wasn’t that. There’s a bubble of a laugh in her throat, one that pops into full blown hysterics when Rio raises both his eyebrows, tilts his chin down in surprise. 

“She _liked_ that shit? Damn.” 

“She and her husband used a different scent. Like, a citrus-y one. Maybe that one was better?” 

“Mami, I think anythin’ would be better. We smell like somebody’s lunch.” 

Beth laughs, looks at him, and without thinking, bites his shoulder and immediately gags at the taste of massage oil. Instant regret. 

He cackles, pulling her into him as she keeps spluttering, hands tracing up her back, and he uses it as an excuse to push his oily chest over hers, rubbing it off on her own. 

“Oh, god, _nooo_ ,” she groans, trying to wriggle out from under him, but he’s heavier than he looks, stronger, but she knew that already. Finally she just gives up, sagging underneath him and he leans in to kiss her, pulling back and grimacing at the taste. 

“Yeah, we ain’t doin’ that again,” he tells her. “I see you within ten feet of one of those things, we’re gonna have a problem.” 

“If you see me within ten feet of a candle, we’re going to have a problem?” she asks, voice thick with amusement, and he just looks down at her, raising himself up enough on his arms to cage her in beneath him. He looks down at her suddenly, at her negligee, still up around her armpits, at her bra, at her suspender belt. All the rest of her clothes discarded around them. 

“We gotta get rid of this,” he hums, and she nods in agreement, sitting up in her bed, watching him sit up after her. She lets him tug off her negligee, tossing it to the corner, before he takes off her bra, staring almost in awe as her breasts are let go of it, and she rolls her eyes, stepping off the bed and shucking out of the suspender belt. 

She looks at him, watching her from the bed, a little young, a little spent, more than a little bruised, and something in her just - - just aches. Just is. God, maybe she’s getting used to it. She gestures towards the bathroom, and Rio slips off the bed to follow. 

Stepping into her en suite, Beth turns on the shower, checking the heat, surprised and somehow not at all when Rio stands a little back, a little away from her. He opens one of her cabinets, looking for what, she’s not sure, but either way, he thumbs through some of her moisturisers, her creams, her make-up. When the water is warm enough, Beth steps clean into the shower, scrubbing a hand down through her hair, making easy work of washing it. 

It’s not long before Rio steps in behind her, washing himself, and then helping her to finish running the conditioner through her hair. He runs his hands down her face, her chest, kissing one of her puckered nipples, and it’s - - this is about _him_ , it’s his birthday, but he holds her hips steady as he gets on his knees, breathing his apology into her cunt and tongue fucking her until she has a leg over his shoulder and a hand pressed into the shower wall, her noises honest and open and desperate, and she cums _hard_ against him, her legs trembling, and he looks almost too pleased as he stands up against her, feels it, when she clings to him in the afterglow, and she swears she’s not lying to herself that he clings back.

*

He’s half asleep in her bed when she slips out of her bedroom, beelining for the kitchen and grabbing the container off the countertop. She pulls out the cupcake – the one she’d made just for him – and it’s not her prettiest thing, but it’s one of her favourite recipes – chilli and dark chocolate – something hot and rich, and the metaphor had felt a lot cuter in her head. Still. She grabs one of the birthday candles from her island drawer, lights it, tries to steel herself as she slips back into her bedroom.

And he must’ve seen it, must’ve felt it, because Rio takes one look at her and shakes his head. 

“No,” he says, and Beth bites her lip, tries for a smile, as she edges through the dark of her bedroom towards him.

“I promise I won’t sing,” she replies, climbing gently onto the bed. 

“ _No_ ,” he repeats, and Beth can’t help herself, humming the opening line of _Happy Birthday_ , and watching him suck in his lips in a look she’s starting to realise sits somewhere between frustration and embarrassment. 

“It’ll be over faster if you just do it,” she says, holding the cupcake out in both hands, and Rio watches her, his pained expression softening, and he rolls his eyes a little, exhales an annoyed breath, and finally leans forwards to blow the candle out. 

The sudden darkness briefly blinds her, so she doesn’t see him leaning in, only feels him pluck the cake from her hand, pushing it over onto her bedside table before catching her lips with his, kissing her deeply. 

“Happy birthday,” she breathes into his mouth, letting him swallow the words whole.


End file.
